


it's the life we're living now (and it's beautiful somehow)

by zoeysdianetti



Category: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV)
Genre: A little bit of angst, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, i don't even know what other tags this needs, me? writing yet another joan/ava fic? noooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29923620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoeysdianetti/pseuds/zoeysdianetti
Summary: Joan and Ava have just started dating when Danny Michael Davis offers Joan a promotion that could change everything.
Relationships: Joan/Ava Price
Kudos: 4





	it's the life we're living now (and it's beautiful somehow)

It’s only a little past 7 am when Joan sets foot on the fifth floor. She won’t be able to sneak around here for much longer. The reconstruction is done, the big plastic sheets have come down and all that’s left to do is place desks and chairs. Once they’re delivered, the newly hired coders will be able to move out of the three meeting rooms they’re taking up now and come work here. Lucky for her, the delivery was delayed.

Sitting on the bright yellow staircase, she finds Ava. She’s clutching a big cup of coffee in one hand and her phone in the other. Joan walks up to her and tells her to scootch over so she can sit next to her. Without looking up from her phone, Ava hands Joan a cup of coffee, identical to her own.

“Thanks,” Joan mumbles. “What are you doing?” She peers over Ava’s shoulder, trying to see the screen.

“Oh, nothing really. I was just adding stuff to my Amazon wishlist.” She puts her phone down next to her and takes a sip of her coffee. “Good morning.”

Joan smiles. “Good morning yourself.” She leans in and gives Ava a quick kiss, then rests her head on her shoulder. “How long do we have?”

Ava picks her phone up to check the time. “About twenty minutes.”

Joan sighs and sips her coffee. She grimaces when she realises it’s gone cold since Ava bought it. All that’s left now is lukewarm bitterness, instead of the steaming hot coffee she’d expected.

“I’m sorry, I expected you to get here earlier,” Ava apologises.

“It’s fine.” Joan pauses. “Why are we doing this again?”

“Because we were trying to take it slow, keep things separate? Honestly I don’t remember, I’m not awake enough for this.”

“God, I hate us.”

“I love us.”

Joan chuckles. “Yeah, me too.” She’s looking at Ava like she’s her whole world. Maybe that’s true. Maybe this is what it was always supposed to be. Just the two of them, sitting on a staircase on an abandoned floor of a building where both of them work. If she thinks about it for too long, it sounds absurd. After all, she and Ava didn’t always get along. It’s weird how much can change over the course of barely one month's time.

“Hey so… I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” Joan says.

“You sound serious.”

“Well, it’s a serious matter. You might not like it.” Joan pauses. “Danny Michael Davis offered me a big promotion. He wants me to be interim CEO of SPRQPoint. I would have to fly to Singapore to run the Asian division from there.”

Ava feels like she was punched right in the middle of her chest. Multiple times. In the exact spot where you suddenly can’t breathe for a few seconds. First of all, Joan got offered a promotion? And Ava didn’t even hear a thing about it? Honestly, she shouldn’t be surprised with the overwhelming amount of white people here, but still. She would have been just as qualified as Joan, she should have at least gotten a chance to compete with her. Secondly, if Joan takes the promotion, that would involve her moving away halfway around the globe. What would that mean for them? It’s a lot all at once and Ava feels like she might collapse if she stays here for one more minute. She promptly stands up, throws her phone in her bag and grabs her empty coffee cup.

“Ava, where are you going?”

“I don’t know. I have to get some fresh air.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Joan asks, visibly concerned.

“No, it’s—it’s fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll see you later.”

Joan wants to stop her, but Ava is already hurrying away to the elevators. She’s left alone on the stairs with only her disgusting, cold coffee to keep her company.

* * *

By the time Joan sees Ava again, the work day is nearly over. She manages to stop her in the hallway of the sixth floor.

“Joan, I really want to finish this thing before the day is done,” she says, motioning in the general direction of her office.

“Are you avoiding me?”

Ava sighs. “Can I please go?”

“Aves, this is ridiculous. If I had known this was gonna bother you so much, I wouldn’t have told you. At least not like this.”

“What would you have done then? Text me while you’re boarding your plane?” sneers Ava. Joan is taken aback by her comment. Sure, she didn’t expect Ava to be all happy about it from the very first minute, but she also didn’t expect Ava to run out and avoid her for the rest of the day and then get mad when she tried to talk about it

“Ava please,” Joan pleads, “can’t we talk about this?”

“Fine. But not here, and not now. We don’t want to make a scene.”

“Come over to my house tonight? I’ll cook.”

A careful smile creeps onto Ava’s face. “Your house?”

“Yes. Will you be there?” Joan asks, fully aware it will be the first time she meets Ava anywhere else than at work. They decided to take things slow and meet up on neutral ground, which is why lately, she has been getting up an hour earlier than usual to see Ava before work, at work. It has been hell, but it was worth it.

“Text me the address,” Ava says. She winks at Joan, then squeezes her shoulder as she walks away. Joan feels herself get warm. She puts a hand on her cheek and finds it glowing. She must be bright red, like a teenager falling in love for the first time. Shit. She hurries towards the stairwell and makes her way down, that way she can at least blame her red face on the physical efforts she has made. 

Back in her office, she throws all of her belongings in her bag and takes off. There’s another thirty minutes left on the work day, but she couldn’t care less. On her way to the garage, she texts Ava the address, but immediately gets a notification that her text was not delivered. Stupid underground parking garages and their lack of cell reception.

At the first red light, Joan tries sending the text again. She immediately gets a text back from Ava, telling her she’ll be there and she’s looking forward to it. Joan almost forgets the reason why they’re doing this in the first place is because they had a fight. But was it a fight, really? For all Joan knows she didn’t see Ava because she was busy. Sure, okay, deep down she knows that isn’t true, but she just wants to pretend for a minute. After all, this  _ is _ their first actual date.

Once she gets home, Joan nearly has a meltdown trying to decide what they should eat tonight. She promised Ava she’d cook, but should they maybe order takeout instead, or is that too casual? No, she  _ promised _ she’d cook herself. Yes. Yes, she should definitely cook herself. She opens the fridge and takes a look at the ingrediënts, trying to come up with something she could cook with them.

As Joan paces through the kitchen, gathering everything she needs to get started on the meal, her dogs follow her around. When she almost trips over Baxter, her little bolognese dog, she decides she’s had enough. She guides the dogs to the garage and gives them each their food.

“Mommy will be back in a few hours,” she tells them in a high pitched baby voice. While scratching Rocky, the German Shepherd, behind his ears, she coos, “Yes she will. Yes she will!”

She leaves the dogs in the garage with their pillows and toys and hurries back to the kitchen. If she wants her chicken stroganoff to be done on time, she’ll have to get to work. Joan pours herself a glass of wine and gets started on slicing the onions. Ten minutes later, her sauce is bubbling on the stove. She decides to not fry the chicken yet, she’ll get started on that and the pasta when they’re actually about to eat.

* * *

When Joan goes to open the door for Ava, she doesn’t know how to behave. Having her in her own home feels so foreign. Joan takes Ava’s coat and invites her into the living room.

“Make yourself at home. Would like something to drink?”

Ava hesitates. “Uh. Sure. A glass of wine might be nice.”

“Red, white or rosé?”

“Red please.”

Joan walks around in the half open kitchen, taking glasses out of cupboards and filling them with wine. Ava looks around in the living room. Everything is very white and clean, minimalistic. Not a single thing is out of place. It’s almost the polar opposite of Ava’s own, cluttered place.

“Here you go,” Joan says as she hands Ava a wine glass. They sit in comfortable silence, until Joan can’t take it anymore. She puts her own glass down on the coffee table and takes Ava’s too. She takes her hands and looks at her. “Ava. I want you to know, if you don’t want me to move away, I won’t. I can turn Danny down.”

“No,” Ava immediately blurts out.

“No, I shouldn’t take it?” Joan asks.

Ava shakes her head. “No. No, that’s not what I meant, I’m sorry.” She breathes deep. “No, you  _ should  _ take it. It’s a huge opportunity. You can’t let that slide just because of me.”

Joan squeezes Ava’s hands. “Are you sure?”

“As sad as it makes me, yes. I don’t want you to send your career down the drain because of me. You would never forgive me.” Joan opens her mouth to say something, but Ava stops her. “You don’t have to say that’s not true. You might think that now, but in a few years you’ll feel nothing but regret and blame me. That’s not your fault. It’s just the way people are.” 

She looks at their hands, fingers intertwined. She has almost lost all feeling in them because both she and Joan are squeezing so hard. They don’t want to let each other go. Ava feels tears prickling behind her eyes, but she fights them. She can’t let Joan see her cry. If she cries, Joan will stay. “I’ll miss you.”

“Come with me,” Joan says. Ava looks up from their hands. “I mean it. I could talk Danny into promoting both of us. We’ll be a team. We’ll be together.” She pauses and bites her lip, trying to bite a piece of loose skin off. “I know we agreed to take it slow. But I’m all in if you are. I really” —she almost says love— “like you.”

Ava hesitates. How will she know if they’ll make it? What if they start fighting and SPRQPoint suffers the consequences? Look at today. Joan told her one thing and she couldn’t take it and ran away. What if that happens in Singapore? But she doesn’t say any of that. All she says is, “Are you sure?”

“I am,” Joan says. She sounds so sure of it. Like nothing Ava could do would ever make her turn on her.

“Okay,” Ava says. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

**Author's Note:**

> i refuse to believe joan and ava left at the same time and they're not together, that's just too much of a coincidence (also they take baxter and rocky with them but i couldn't squeeze that in without it sounding forced k bye)


End file.
